The Faux Night
by Mental Verin
Summary: She was their guardian. Sent to reveal truths and de cifer the lies.  She brings out the truth that was hidden from all and reveals the true origins of the wizards whom claim to be pure of blood and those who are told are not. Dramione. OC main character.
1. Prologue

The wind rustled across the shadowy expanse of land that surrounded the proud and elegant grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, brushing up against the solid stone walls of the ancient structure. The breeze whistled through the openings in the masonry of the buildings that connect to each other and settled around a lone figure that leaned against one of the high structured ramparts spread out among the grounds.

The night time air covered the woman in a warm blanket and she closed her eyes with a smile as the summer night winds played in her blood red hair and among the folds of her midnight black robes. The moment was beautiful, the most peaceful and calm as any moment in the war against the darkness had been so far. Her smile grew wider as she felt the wards and magic that encompassed Hogwarts tremble alongside her presence. The stone beneath her feet seemed to feed off of her own more dangerous and volatile magic, strengthening the protections of the fine school.

"You're very predictable, my lady," an old and withered voice spoke behind her, the tone warm and soothing, just like the night air.

With her eyes still closed and her back turned to her visitor, she replied, "Only to you, Albus. No one else ever finds me."

A soft chuckle echoed in the atmosphere that surrounded the two and the woman slowly opened her eyes and turned to face the old man who had been by her side for many years. Her smile turned soft as she examined the wrinkles that surrounded his twinkling blue eyes and smiling, thin lips. More of the telling creases lined his forehead as well, but he retained a full head of long white hair that fell past his shoulders and a long white beard that was tied to keep from flying everywhere. He wore light blue robes with silver and white trimming and made him seem the wise old man that he was.

"It is good to see you again, my dear," Albus intoned in the silence between them. "You've been gone for far too long."

Her smile twitched only the slightest bit. "I've been busy. My daughter has finally given me a grandchild and I've been setting up the most powerful wards to keep my family safe," she replied. "War times aren't the best time to bring a child into the world."

Albus' sigh was one of remorse and sadness as he approached closer to the woman and looked out across the trees of the Forbidden Forest and the gentle waves of the Black Lake. "As many understand all too well," he replied. He tucked his hands behind his back before continuing. "Lily and James Potter have just received news that they too will be bringing another life into this world. Lily is, sadly, heartbroken that her child will live in such times but James is confident that he can protect them. There are other similar issues surrounding the Weasley and Longbottom clans but nothing can be done about it now. It is better that we enjoy what moments we can that are truly happy and without danger."

The woman bowed her head slightly and smiled to herself. "You are starting to sound like Nicholas. You've been hanging around him too much lately. I'm sure his poor wife misses his company. He should take her on a nice trip, although, I suppose they have seen more of the world than most," she said with amusement.

Another chuckle came from the man at her side. "I suppose your right. Minerva has been complaining about my spouts of philosophy to the students as of late," he replied.

"I'm sure," she returned with a small laugh of her own.

Silence then reined between the two companions as the woman leaned her head back to look up at the sky and view each of the stars and constellations that appeared. She could see the millennium alliances beginning to form in them and sighed remorsefully, knowing soon that she would have to enter the death sleep that would last until she would be needed again.

"That look never bodes well, Mi'lady," Albus said quietly. "Especially when it comes from you."

A small smile spread across her lips before she turned to her friend. "I know, Albus; but this time it has good and bad sides to it," she said. He gave her a curious look, silently asking her to continue her explanation. She turned her eyes back to the still, dark waters of the Black Lake. "This war will either come to a halt or maybe even end soon. It'll give us a reprieve to recover ourselves," she said quietly.

Albus nodded in contemplation. "That is good news," he mumbled. "I do not see how there could be bad news though."

"The bad is more for me than for you and the others," she replied. "When the war halts I will be forced to enter my kind's death sleep until someone or something awakens me," she explained. "I will not be able to watch my granddaughter grow into the beautiful young woman I know she will be. My daughter is spared this curse so at least she will have both her parents."

Quiet once more.

"Your concerns are understandable," Dumbledore finally said.

She smiled to herself before turning around, her black robes swirling around her like smoke. "I have nothing to worry about as of yet. I will have at least two more years with my family before I am forced to retreat back to the deserts for a time," her smile held but the old, wizened man could see the sadness peaking through her glorious dual-colored eyes.

"When will I know to wake you?" he asked.

The smile disappeared from her smooth face and seriousness spread through her form. "I cannot say," she said, the wind whipping at her hair. "You will only know to do so when the Fates deem it time."

Dumbledore nodded in understanding before giving her an informal bow from the waist. "Then go, Mi'lady, and enjoy your counted moments with your family." He rose to watch her.

She smiled and nodded before turning to leave the castle but was stopped by Dumbledore.

"You never told us your name, Mi'lady," he stated.

When she had come to the Order, proposing her skills to the men and women gathered around an old scratched up table, she had left a lot of information unanswered and no one knew her name, where she came from, or how old she was; the only thing that they did know was that since she had joined the order fifteen years ago she had not aged a day and remained looking like a one of the students just out of Hogwarts. Even though no one knew anything else about her they knew they could trust her. There was a feeling, a sensation that they could trust her, as though she had an aura around her that erupted with loyalty to their cause. But now that she had informed him that she would be gone for awhile, Dumbledore's curiosity reaffirmed itself to know about her.

She looked over her shoulder at the wizard with a small smirk spreading from the corner of her mouth. "That's a good question, Albus. But I can't answer it. I forgot my real name a long time ago," she said. "In the mean time, you can call me Faux."

With that parting statement she disappeared in a swirl of smoke.

Two years later, as the woman known as Faux had predicted, the Dark Lord, Voldemort, fell as he used the killing curse on the young Harry Potter, the only child of Lily and James Potter. The only remainder of him was his legacy, his scattered followers, and a scar left on the brow of a year old child. The Potter boy became one of the most famous wizards ever on that fateful night as he was taken from the destroyed home and brought to the doorstep of his only living relative, Petunia Dursley, Lily's older sister.

Faux knew immediately that Voldemort was gone for the moment and wished her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter goodbye before departing to the deserts of Iraq. Her daughter had been prepared for the moment for her mother's departure but still felt saddened that her own daughter would not grow up knowing the truth as Faux had instructed. The child would grow up knowing nothing of her own heritage and would be fed a lie until a time came where it was necessary for her to be told the truth.

Faux stood beside the crib where the sweet two year old was nestled in a sleep filled with the happiest of dreams. Faux had watched the child and helped raised her since she was born and would miss her dearly. Even though she would be considered dead while in her death sleep and time would seem to fly as if it wasn't even there, she would miss the girl greatly.

Knowing it was time to go and feeling the inevitable approach of her kind's curse, Faux leaned over the railing of the crib, pressed a kiss to the babe's smooth brow and whispering a protection spell in her native language. "Stay safe, my youngling," she whispered in English. "We'll meet again one day."

With reluctance, she turned and left the room quietly. A pang throbbed strongly in her chest where her heart was as she pushed back the tears and went into the living her where her daughter and her husband waited for her.

They were seated on the couch, and he gripped her hand with a tightness meant for comfort and rubbed her back in soothing circles as she wept silently into his shoulder. Faux could smell the salt of her tears from her position in the entry way into the living room. She disliked seeing her daughter in such a state and couldn't help being angry at herself for causing her heartache.

She approached the couple and sat on the other side of her daughter and petted her head as she used to do when she was a youngling. "Don't cry, Michelle," she whispered in a motherly tone. "I'll come back in a few years. You know this."

The young woman's cries finally became audible as she turned swiftly and buried her tear stained face in her mother's bosom. "I can't help it, Mother," she cried as her pale hands gripped the sleeves of her gown tightly. "Every time it gets harder because I never know when you'll wake up!"

Faux smoothed her hand over Michelle's unruly auburn tresses and whispered soothingly to her daughter. "All will be alright, my youngling. All will be alright. I'll come back," she whispered the words over and over again as though saying them would reaffirm them in her daughter's mind and her own as well. She glanced at the man who she had come to love as a son and whispered more words of comfort to her daughter as she lovingly kissed her head. "Ian will be here. He'll help you through this," she hummed into her daughter's ear.

She rocked her daughter gently to ease her, much as she had done when Michelle was younger, until the young woman had exhausted herself and fallen asleep in her mother's arms. Gently, Faux set her down onto the couch and summoned a blanket to cover the woman up. Ian watched her with anxious eyes as she brushed a few stray hairs from Michelle's cheek and pressed a kiss to her temple. Again, as she departed she whispered a spell of protection in her language before standing straight and turning to her son-in-law.

"Take care of them, Ian. I know I don't really have to ask you but I will anyways," Faux spoke quietly so as not to wake Michelle. She pulled the man into a hug. He was much taller than her and her head tucked under his chin. "Take care of my girls for me," she whispered before repeating the process she had done twice before. She pulled him down and kissed him on the cheek and as she departed whispered her prayer.

Ian nodded and repressed his own tears as he watched the mother of the woman he loved most walk out of his front door and disappear.

"Sleep well, Ningali…"


	2. Chapter 1: The Woes of the Awoken

Darkness. Terror. Death. Loss.

The castle seemed surrounded by the four elements of despair and as the days went by the knowledge of what had occurred in the Department of Mysteries came to be common knowledge around Hogwarts. The agony of the recent death touched the hearts of all of the Order; but not nearly as tightly as it pressed on Harry Potter.

Dumbledore had just finished his meeting with the boy and explained to him why he had avoided him all of the school year. He had hoped that his lessons with Severus in Occlumency would have prevented what had happened in the Ministry but it seemed as though Voldemort was a step ahead of them in learning of the connection and they were too late to stop his use of it. Now they were down one powerful wizard and were on their way to losing another.

Dumbledore stared down at his blackened hand and sighed remorsefully. The curses set upon the horcruxes as protection where strong and had dealt him a fatal blow when he had destroyed the Gaunt family ring horcrux. Severus had informed him that he mostly likely had until the end of the next school year before the poisons of the curse reached his heart and he died.

As he thought over the decisions he had made in his life, the good and the bad, Severus came into his office and quietly watched the old man until he was noticed.

"Severus," Dumbledore greeted with a small smile. "How are you today, my friend?"

Severus released a heaving sigh and his shoulders slumped. He looked to be a man with the world on his shoulders. "I've been better, Albus," he mumbled, stepping up the dais to stand before Dumbledore's desk. "I've just come from a meeting with Voldemort followed by another with Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange." He paused to catch his breath and Dumbledore lifted his chin as he waited for the Potions Master to continue. The man always had a composed expression, as though no situation could affect him, but it looked as though his years of being apathetic to the world had finally caught up with him. "Voldemort," he started again, his head tilted down, eyes staring at the stone floor, "has assigned Draco Malfoy to a mission; one that could potentially kill him if he should fail." He gasped for breath and Dumbledore could understand why; Draco was the man's godson after all and he cherished the boy dearly no matter his arrogance. "He is to…repair something. I don't know what but it's supposed to get the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. After they're in, he has been ordered to kill you. If he fails or refuses to do the mission Voldemort has threatened the lives of his mother and his father."

When he was finished silence ruled between the two men and made the air tense. He didn't put it past Voldemort to want him dead and to use any means to do so, but the fact that he would put a boy as the key part to his plans was something he hadn't expected. He would have thought the Dark Lord to use someone with more experience in such matters but it showed how desperate he was to get Dumbledore out of his way.

"I see," Dumbledore said, finally breaking the contemplative silence. "It seems Voldemort does not know of my condition as of yet. But we cannot allow Draco to become a murder, Severus. What did Narcissa speak to you about?"

"She asked that I help Draco in whatever way I could. Bellatrix forced us into making an unbreakable vow," he replied.

"Ah…" Dumbledore hummed to himself. "Most likely Draco will not be wanting your help at all when he returns to do his task. He will want to prove himself to the Dark Lord that he is capable of doing the mission on his own in order to gain the good graces his family once had with Voldemort." Dumbledore pondered to himself for a moment more before turning his expressive blue eyes back to Severus and looking at the dark clad man over his half-moon spectacles. "Severus, if it comes to that, I want you to be the one who kills me. Do not let Draco become the murder Voldemort wants him to be," he said firmly.

Severus stared at him with wide and astonished eyes. Before he could refuse, Dumbledore stood from his seat behind the desk and walked around it to stand beside the spy.

"I must go on a trip," the headmaster said. "Since we are down a man and will soon be losing another, it seems we will need some powerful reinforcements." With that said Dumbledore walked past his frozen employee and headed for the door. "Expect me back in a few days."

"You can't possibly mean you're going after her," Snape said, dragging himself from his shock. "She hasn't been seen in near fifteen years, Albus. What makes you think you can find her now?"

Dumbledore stopped with the door to his office open and turned back to the other man. "She told me that when the day came when we needed her most I would be able to find her. That is how I know," he said and turned back to continue his departure. "Fear not, Severus, when I return we will be stronger."

****

_The Syrian Desert, Iraq_

The heated winds whipped with small kernels of sand mixed in. The barren lands remained the same in all directions of the rose compass with a blue sky stretching overhead in its vast expanse. Not a cloud in sight, not a drop of water to be found.

Her hair whirled around her in a tangled mess of red and the robes she wore floated like smoke. Her dual colored eyes remained open as she studied the land with a patient eye. Her skin remained smooth even with the balmy heat pressing down on her by the sun and the rough winds pressing against her delicate features. She remained, as ever, looking like a seventeen year old woman.

"It seems as though the world has stopped for the both of us, Albus," she finally spoke, speaking to the man who stood several paces behind her. "I had hoped you would wake me sooner so that I could spare the world the loss of Sirius Black," she continued, her back still to him.

"What would you have done differently, Faux?" Dumbledore replied.

She looked over her shoulder at him, out of the corner of one menacing blue eye. Her anger seemed to spark the grey flecks hidden within and make her eye seem more silver than blue and he knew it was anger that she directed at him with the slight narrowing of her eyelids. "I wouldn't have manipulated the people around me as you have done," she growled, "I would have kept the boy close to me and taught him myself the ways of an Occlumens." She spun around on her heal and stalked toward him and for the first time in his long life, Dumbledore felt true fear and terror shiver down his spine. "I would not have let my own pride get in the way of protecting those who needed to be protected," she hissed at him.

"That only proves that you are a better person than me," Dumbledore spoke calmly. "However," he continued, "I am not you and you were not there so I have had to make do with what resources I had."

Faux sneered at him her displeasure of the situation before taking a step back from him and continuing her glare. "You can explain the situation in more detail to me while I get a hair-cut, Albus. And if you withhold any details, I will not hesitate to take your control of that school away from you," she said, laying down her ground rules immediately.

With her threat in place, Faux grabbed his arm and apparated from the vast expanses of desert.

****

"We've prepared a room for you in the castle. It's close to the Gryffindor tower entrance and you will be helping to safeguard the students along with the rest of the teachers," McGonagall said as she led the woman following behind her through the winding and twisting hallways of Hogwarts.

When Faux had arrived that day in the middle of the Great Hall where the teachers were sitting down for lunch, Dumbledore's arm in her strong hold, no one had expected the appearance she had presented. They knew she could apparate within the school boundaries; she had the power. But her new 'look', as the students were calling it these days, differed vastly from the one she had fourteen years ago.

According to Albus, when they had reached muggle London, she had dragged him into a hair salon, that wasn't cheap at all, and had them remake her entire hairstyle. What once used to be knee length blood-red hair was now the same red color on top but the bottom layer had been died black and the hair cut in what was apparently called a 'scene' style that covered her left eye and made her hair have an eternal bed head appearance. She had certainly made a scene upon the teachers' lunch meal with hair that started short at the nape of her neck then flowed down in layers over her shoulders to frame her small but pert breasts, as her new outfit assured everyone they were.

Albus had continued to tell of their journey through muggle London by telling his staff of how this small woman had continued to drag him to store after store in search of a new wardrobe separate of her regular robes. She now wore on daily occasions a black fitted shirt that showed any womanly curves that had once been in speculation and dark blue 'skinny' jeans tucked into full black, steel toed, combat boots. She finished her ensemble of clothing with a thin grey jumper that still held to her curves, a denim jacket, and a black Egyptian-cotton scarf with grey Sanskrit phrases printed all over it wrapped around her neck.

Minerva had known Faux before her sleep and had always admired the strengths presented by the continuous seventeen-year-old. She had the capabilities to be serious and ready when she needed to be and was an excellent strategist, but she could also play the part of a young woman very well even though everyone who knew her knew that she was far much older than that.

"Minerva," Faux said, bringing their pace through the hallways to a halt and the witch from her silent musings, "do you think Albus made the right choice in keeping Harry away this past year?"

The Transfiguration teacher turned to look at Faux and was met with a stoic and expressionless façade, but she could see the anger at the hastily made decision burning in her visible grey-blue eye. "I think the events that have occurred could have been avoided if Albus had not gone through with his aversion to Potter," she said in a very trimmed and contemplative voice. "And even though I know Albus had the best intentions at heart to keep the Order's plans from Voldemort, I do believe they backfired against us at a very crucial moment. Severus and I both do not agree with his methods, but he has never listened to either of us when we have raised our concerns. Why should he start now?"

"If you had control of the situation, what would you have done differently?" Faux asked.

Minerva knew that Faux was interrogating her to gage where she stood and answered with the honest truth. "I would have kept the boy by my side and, if I were an Occlumens like Severus or Albus, I would have taught him myself instead of making it someone else's problem. Severus and Harry have very conflicting personalities and will always fight each other about everything until the day when the Earth stands still. Harry would have never learned how to use Occlumency under his tutelage, even if there hadn't been any strife between them to begin with."

Faux sighed at the elderly woman's answer and her shoulders visibly sagged with relief. "I'm glad we share the same vision, Minerva," Faux said as she continued on her way. McGonagall turned on her heal and walked beside the red head as she spoke. "It means that if anything happens to me I can trust you to look after our apparent 'only hope'," she continued with an open smirk at her choice of Harry's position in this war.

McGonagall nodded. "I'm glad I have your trust, Madam Night," the witch replied as they reached the painting entrance to the dorm Albus had allotted to their guest.


End file.
